Angalizo: Hii makala ni ndefu lakini inachambua maswala muhimu (kwa maoni yangu). Nimeileta hapa kama ilivyo ili kama una muda unaweza kuisoma yote hapa badala ya kubofya na kwenda kwenye chanzo.
Analysis: Kenya Enters Next Phase of War
Kenya's "Freedom of Action" May Lead to the Opposite
By Robert Young Pelton
The Somali Diaspora Center of Eastleigh, Nairobi
Three and a half weeks into its punitive expedition, Kenya is feeling its oats. Without any major pushback from the global community Kenya now is throttling up. With no official mandate given, Kenya has now taken it upon themselves to run Jubaland as if it is under their control, imposing no fly zones, closing borders, blockaded the waters and warning residents willy nilly to either flee, stay put or whatever the latest official tweet dictates. There is nary a peep from the TFG or AMISOM on these arbitrary decisions. The Kenya army on its first major cross border adventure is operating with a giddy sense of purpose. Army Spokesman Major Emmanuel Chirchir is clearly enjoying his position as lightning rod for the media. The major fired off a tweet warning civilians in ten Somali towns to be ready for violence. It's not known why he thought Twitter was the appropriate medium, but he warned residents in Baidoa, Baadheere, Baydhabo, Dinsur, Afgooye, Bwale, Barawe and Jilib that the towns will be "under attack continuously".
He then had to correct his aggressive missive by explaining that he meant the camps outside the urban areas would be attacked, not the civilians in the towns.
"We're not attacking towns - I want to make that clear - we're attacking al-Shabaab camps. All we're saying is that people in Somalia, avoid being close to al-Shabaab camps," he told the BBC's Focus on Africa program.
His latest tweets about air strikes on donkeys seem closer to stand-up comedy material than useful information management: "Any large concentration and movement of loaded donkeys will be considered as Al Shabaab activity." Somalis are using donkeys to carry their possessions to flee from his first tweets. Chichir's latest written missive warns Somali's inside Somalia "to be cautious of people seeking treatment from bullet wounds and report any suspicious persons to the nearest police station or security agency". That curious Kenyan politeness seems to ignore the horrific realities of life inside Somalia now exacerbated by an air, sea and ground invasion
Major Chirchir admitted that "it was difficult to fit all the information into the 140 characters allowed in a Twitter message" and therein lies the lesson. Kenya's simplistic goal of seizing Kismayo and pacifying Jubaland (also known as Azania) is a simplistic strategic tweet that ignores the longer historical narrative of Kenya's relationship with Somalia. The very use of tweets from the confines of Nairobi to micromanage the war inside Somalia has an almost "Dr Strangelove in the bunker" feel to it. There have also been a number of contrasting, incorrect or confusing statements compared to the original mandate issued by the government:.
"The Kenya Government's objective is to pursue and curtail the operations of the terror organization Al-Shabab, which has become a threat to Kenya's Security and economy. To this end, the Kenya Government strategy is to destroy Al-Shabab's network within the shortest time possible. Our troops are fighting alongside those of the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia.
Kenya has no plans or intention to stay in Somalia an hour beyond necessary. Once our objective is met as per the framework of AU and IGAD, Kenyan troops will withdraw and leave the security operations to AU mission troops and TFG troops."
Although the original invasion day excuse was invoking article 51 of the UN Chapter which permits the self defense and protect the security of Kenyan citizens. The rationales have become more complex. IGAD supports the modeling of Azania on Somaliland and Puntland. not the centralized government supported by the AU, they also called for no fly zones (something the UN has not supported) and blockading Kismayo (something the international navies do not support). The Djibouti Peace Process specifically forbids Kenya from contributing troops to the TFG. The UN has an arms embargo but interprets the invasion as being part of a "bilateral agreement" between Kenya and the TFG. The Kenyan expedition, win or lose, will get interesting in creative shaping of interpretation and law. It may get lost in the historic retelling, but all of the public justifications and written approvals were created after the invasion of Somalia by the Kenya military. Might makes right. Not one to benefit from looking back on lessons learned over the last two decades of foreign intervention, Chichir confidently set his gaze forward and told local media that Kenyan troops "will enjoy freedom of action in Somalia for a long time" and said they will attack any aircraft that deliver weapons to al-Shabaab, effectively ignoring Somalia's concern about an invading adventurist army on an illegal outing and declaring war on Eritrea who supplies al-Shabaab with weapons.
As the battle of Kismayo looms, the blind confidence of Kenya's twittering virgin army may soon come face to face with some hard analog ground truth: civilian causalities, IEDs, snipers ambushes, a hostile population and dealing with that special Somali skill in frustrating the most well-intentioned, well-provisioned and well-prepared armies on earth.
The battle won't be just inside the region Kenya calls "Azania". The angry fundamentalist engine that powers al-Shabaab is as much in Kenya as it is in Somalia. Nairobi and Dar es Salaam are where al Qaeda's black banner of smoke was first raised 13 years ago.
It is logical and moral to strike back at an insidious and hostile force that hides behind a fictional border, but that fictional border also means that equal effort must be expended on both sides. Much like America in Afghanistan, which took ten years to realize it was fighting Afghans from Pakistan, Kenya will soon learn that there are enough disaffected Somalis within and without their own borders to keep them busy for decades to come. A quick or slow victory in Somalia will not remove the underlying problems that give Islamic fundamentalists purpose. The tiny grenade tossing terror attempts in Nairobi were not typical examples of al-Qaeda's or al-Shabaab's high explosive wrath. The odds are good that there is much more to come once materials and targets are selected.
Moral versus Illegal
The tipping point was supposed to be kidnapped tourists and aid workers, but Kenya has been abused by "Somali Raiders" for a very, very long time. Whether it is kidnapping its tourists, poaching its animals, hijacking its ships or kidnapping wives, the pleasant polite Kenyans have been a favorite plundering ground for Somalis. There is a historical sense of payback for the virginal army. That same army has been funded, trained and equipped by the US in its effort to bring stability to the region. There is also a need to push out terrorist elements by using locally trained intelligence and anti-terrorism assistance. It is no coincidence that the glowing green fingerprint machines visitors must use in immigration are identical to the ones used in Afghanistan, Tanzania and the US. Kenya is a proxy partner in the war on terror. It will not take long for al Shabaab to see the guiding hand of foreign nations behind the Kenyan invasion that began it's build up in March of this year.
Poverty, injustice and misery are the wellspring of terrorist recruiting and although there are about a million and a half internally displaced inside Somalia but the largest single concentration of displaced Somalis is actually inside Kenya.
Dadaab was created during the fall of the Somali government in the early 90s. Now it houses about a half million Somalis. Kenya would very much like those Somalis to go home. The scenic country has already complained about being a dumping ground for captured pirates, its tourism industry is dying on its feet and the Kenyan shilling is rapidly approaching par with toilet paper. So with an embarrassing lack of applause from France, the US and the UK, all of whom who have kidnapped citizens inside Somalia, what is the end state that Kenya is looking for?
Down on the Border
The flat arid border between Kenya and Somalia is one of the poorest regions in the world: a place of "durable disorder" much like the turbulent tribal border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Jubaland region has been described as lawless, impoverished, home to illegal trade and wilful clans. And that is without the Kenyan army and air force charging around looking for Somalis who support al Shabaab.
Like Pashtuns along the AfPak border and the Taliban, ethnic Somalis dominate both sides of this border and have deliberately opaque relationships with al-Shabaab. There are also constant flare-ups as clans seek to extend land holdings to compensate for degraded cattle forage and to increase political influence. It is a place where "galti" or Somali outsiders have come with weapons to take over from traditional power brokers. Kenyans with their heavy-handed military approach are neither welcome nor wanted. They are tolerated because right now they offer more than al-Shabaab can deliver. But once again, what they intend to leave behind has yet to be revealed. The AMISOM mandate only allows for 12,000 peacekeepers. So will Azania be a "government in a box" favored by COINdanistas? Will it be a gossamer-thin "local government" made up of toadies, or will it be a patch work of elders intimidated by Kenyan or paid militias? The clan is very much in effect here.
This friction between insiders and outsiders has led to numerous flare-ups on both sides of the border and Kenya has constantly been unable to fund, train, support or project governance to protect itself on its side of the border. So like the Durand line in AfPak, the region is managed as a "status quo" environment.
It could be argued that the current military campaign should have actually been up to Kenya's own border and not inside Somalia towards Kismayo. But the obvious logic is that this bold move in the face of legality is expected to create a buffer zone and by default a defensible border. The TFG has been truculent but ultimately supportive of this concept mostly because they have no way to stop Kenya. It almost dictates that once Kenya reaches the port of Kismayo, Western powers must step in with check books and proxies ready to maintain the momentum.
Victory at What Cost?
It is popular for the media to be defeatist and pessimistic in military matters. After all, it is the Kenyan and Somali population that must shoulder the burden of government adventuring, but let us look forward and assume the best. It is conceivable and likely that Kenya will take Kismayo and all of Jubaland paving the way for removal of al-Shabaab and opening the door to aid, governance, funding and development.
Let us ignore Ethiopia's indignation at Kenya letting Ogadenis play in their backyard, and the TFG's nervousness that they will lose sway over the money making machine that is Kismayo. Let us ignore the inter-clan rivalries, smuggling businesses and Eritrea's need to fund someone, anyone, to give Ethiopia a black eye. Let us assume that al-Shabaab's main source of support, rejecting outside invaders, is vaporized and that there is some political reconciliation with al-Shabaab entities like Aweys and Hizbul Islam and perhaps Robow in Baidoa.
But even with moronic optimism in effect, we are only talking about a tiny slice of Southern Somalia. The Somalialand-, Kenya- and foreign-based elements of al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda will simply resort to a long sporadic campaign of terror against Kenyan allies inside Jubaland and/or Kenya.
The other problem is that the Kenyan government uses western laws and the Somalis in Jubaland have reverted to xeer, the traditional form of clan and inter-clan management that often clashes with the western style of political cronies, democratic parties, western-backed transitional governments and even statutes.
It is not known what system of government Kenya intends to install, but the creation of Azania (Jubaland) under an Ogadeni intellectual and the current support of Ras Kambomi who had former ties to Hizbul Islam already seem dissonant. The rain may be falling and the aid may be flowing but Somalia's multiple problems will not go away just because Kenya has an army on the move.
Kenya's army was designed to fend off attack from once Soviet-supported Tanzania or loony Idi Amin's Uganda. It was never designed as a blitzkrieg mobile force used in much the same America retrained Ethiopia's army to be in 2006. It has been trained by the US to do modern counterinsurgency, call in air strikes and manage the media, but like the Ugandans of AMISOM in Mogadishu they are new at this. Mistakes will be made and Somali civilians will die.
Although the Kenyan military gives lip service to the very American-sounding hearts and minds philosophy they espouse in Somalia, Kenya has a hard time making ends meet even for its own citizens, most of whom (75%) are farmers, and those who aren't suffer an unemployment rate of 40%. Kenya is not going to end the drought or replace the lost livestock, jobs and farmland anytime soon but it could be a stabilizing influence on southern Somalia. Kenya's view of this region as troublesome goes far back before al-Shabaab was born, and there is no reason to think that they would simply leave and let things go back to the way they were. Ergo the Azania buffer zone concept. But what will power Jubaland aka Gedo, Lower Juba and Middle Juba and the approximately 1.3 million residents?
If fighting stops, Somali refugees in Dadaab could start flowing back into Somalia if Kenya creates enough security to allow camps and aid delivery inside Somalia. Securing Kismayo would help start that process. Business between nations would flourish and foreign support would flow to Kenya's military.
Currently the "misery business" is headquartered in Nairobi. It's not a given that the aid and development crowd will leave the cool, polite climes of Kenya for the sweaty destroyed locales of Kismayo and Jubaland.
For example the UNHCR's budget for 2011 in Kenya will be around $225 million dollars and a local staff of 232 out of 366 people. USAID will have spent just under a billion dollars by the end of 2012 since 2008 on Somalia, but managed through Nairobi. It would be refreshing to see aid efforts for Somalia be located and focused in Somalia, but that is not a given.
The United States' dual enthusiasm and coyness for training and supplying the Kenyan military is personified in the US embassy's decade-long financial support of Kenya's army while at the same time having had no idea that Kenyan Defence Force was invading Somalia. This is all the more surprising since the American ambassador to Kenya, a former air force general, Scott Gration actually trained Kenyan pilots to fly the same used Northrop F-5s now being used to bomb Somalis back in the 80s.
America provides unknown millions in covert and overt military and security aid to Kenya and its neighbors Uganda, Ethiopia and Djibouti in their battle against Somalia. Indications are that there is a surprising lack of ownership for the current invasion. Without regional support, Kenya will be as isolated in the south as Uganda is in the center of Somalia.
Freedom of Movement, For How Long?
Freedom of movement is the positive side of an incursion. Once al-Shabaab fighters hand over control, voluntarily or after combat, the army will begin to coagulate and create the same World War One style defenses manned by African Union peacekeeping forces (known as AMISOM) in Mogadishu. Yes, the Kenya Army could flow into Kismayo, destroy al-Shabaab, leaving local militias behind and flow out unimpeded and un-ambushed from the newly liberated port of Kismayo. But Kenya doesn't want to give up hard won territory. It is too valuable as a source of intelligence, stability and perhaps economic gain.
A more realistic scenario for an occupying army is going to be a lull while insurgents regroup, followed by a period of sporadic ambushes, IED attacks, assassination of hired government officials, and a general state of siege. This would be the opposite of freedom of movement since in order to maintain security someone has to be left behind. This job may fall to AMISOM using Ugandan, Djiboutian or Burundian hires. Or it may fall to local untrained militias seconded to the TFG. Or it may be handed over to the Ogadeni militia members recruited from camps and Somali officers trained by Kenya ostensibly to do this job.
Then there is the embarrassing discussion of who is going to pay for all this. Kenya's 2011 $1.2 trillion shilling budget promised to focus on "infrastructure and poverty reduction, recognizing the impact of rising food and fuel prices." Even in June they did not foresee the rapid decline in tourism income (63% of GDP), fall of the shilling (the shillings 25 per cent slide makes it one of the worst performing emerging currencies in 2011), or invasion of Somalia. The military's $600 million budget was for a fairly static peacetime army. AMISOM estimates it will need 20,000 troops to stabilize Somalia. Kenya may want in on the peacekeeping gravy train of renting troops that Uganda, Burundi, Djibouti and Sierra Leone. Between little has been presented on how Kenya intends to manage the gap between their free ranging confidence today and grim siege phase that is to come.
Granted Kenya's two-brigade expedition is but a small part of that deficit or military budget, but the impact of now being a country at war will have far reaching negative impacts - impacts that Kenya should be wise to consider sooner rather than later.
-The Somali Report
